Arunachal chiefships

Many peoples, no kingdom

The eastern Himalayan country now called Arunachal Pradesh contains some of the greatest ethnic and linguistic diversity in Asia — Adi, Nyishi, Apatani, Galo, Mishmi, Tagin, Wancho, Nocte and many more, speaking languages of several distinct groups. Political organisation was local: village councils such as the Apatani bulyañ, clan and lineage authority, and negotiated relations with neighbours.

The Apatani valley's wet-rice cultivation with fish farming in the same fields, sustained without draught animals or the plough, is among the more remarkable indigenous agricultural systems anywhere and supports unusually dense settlement.

In the west, around Tawang and the Monpa country, the situation differed: the Tawang monastery, founded in 1680–81 and among the largest Gelug institutions outside Tibet, exercised religious and temporal authority, and the sixth Dalai Lama was born nearby.

Frontier

The Ahoms had dealt with the hill peoples through the posa system of tribute and trading rights. The British established a loose frontier administration, and the McMahon Line agreed at Simla in 1914 became the boundary claim India inherited and China has never accepted.

The 1962 war was fought largely across this country, and Chinese forces reached the plains before withdrawing. The territory was administered as the North-East Frontier Agency, became a union territory in 1972 and a state in 1987, and remains claimed in part by China.